To thee the palm of scoffing we ascribe, Thou pour'st a soft, sweet, pensive, solemn strain, Like to the melancholy Jaques, complain, Musing on falsehood, folly, vice, and wrong, FITZ-GREENE HALLECK is the well-known author of that effective and artistic poem, Marco Bozzaris, the hero who fell in an attack upon the Turkish camp, on the site of the ancient Platæa, and expired in the moment of victory, exclaiming, "To die for Liberty is a pleasure, not a pain!" Here are some of the lines:— At midnight, in his guarded tent, The Turk was dreaming of the hour When Greece, her knee in suppliance bent, They fought-like brave men, long and well: His few surviving comrades saw His smile-when rang their proud hurrah, And the red field was won; Then saw in death his evelids close Calmly, as to a night's repose, Like flowers at set of sun. For thou art Freedom's now, and Fame's; That were not born to die! HALLECK'S fine Elegy on Burns abounds with impassioned and We extract a few stanzas: glowing beauties. His is that language of the heart, In which the answering heart would speak, And his that music, to whose tone The common pulse of man keeps time, In cot or castle's mirth or moan, In cold or sunny clime. What wild vows falter on the tongue, When "Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled," Or "Auld Lang Syne," is sung? Pure hopes, that lift the soul above, Come with his Cotter's Hymn of praise; And dreams of youth, and truth, and love, With Logan's banks and braes. Such graves as his are pilgrim-shrines, Shrines to no code or creed confined,— The Delphian vales, the Palestines, The Meccas of the mind! 160 |